In the wake of deep trauma, emotions don’t just run high — they often run wild. Rage, despair, numbness, shame — they can storm through your mind and body like a hurricane with no warning. And for many survivors, these feelings aren’t just disruptive — they’re debilitating.
But healing isn’t about escaping emotion. It’s about reclaiming control over how you respond to it. That’s where emotional regulation techniques for adults come in — not as surface-level coping skills, but as life-restoring practices.
In Soul Reclaimed: Transforming Trauma into Triumph, Dr. Neal Ritter shares powerful stories of individuals who faced overwhelming emotional pain and gradually uncovered their strength, not by bypassing emotion, but by learning to be present with it — and ultimately transcend it. This blog builds on that same philosophy.
Why Emotional Regulation Matters More After Trauma
If you’ve experienced trauma, Your nervous system has likely been rewired to expect danger, which helps explain why the brain rewires itself after trauma. Your body and mind may react in unpredictable ways—with fear, anger, or disconnection—highlighting how emotional health shapes behavior. This isn’t weakness — it’s survival. But left unchecked, it can create a life filled with volatility, inner chaos, and broken relationships.
Dr. Ritter illustrates this beautifully through the journey of Julie’s life shattered after a violent assault, bringing into focus the importance of understanding recovered memories of psychological trauma. What followed wasn’t just fear or sadness — it was a total collapse of identity. Her story, like so many in Soul Reclaimed, shows us that trauma disconnects us from ourselves. Emotional regulation techniques for adults aren’t just about stability — they’re about rebuilding that inner connection.
8 Emotional Regulation Techniques for Adults
Technique 1: Naming the Storm
Before you can navigate an emotional storm, you have to name it. In the book, Dr. Ritter encourages clients like Julie to stop running from emotion and start observing it — with courage and compassion.
Try this:
Pause and ask yourself: “What am I feeling right now?” Not just “bad” — but is it grief? Rage? Guilt? Fear? The simple act of labeling your feeling activates the thinking brain and soothes the reactive one.
Naming an emotion takes it from something overwhelming to something knowable — and, eventually, manageable.
Technique 2: Creating Emotional Space with Breath
Throughout Soul Reclaimed, survivors often reach moments when their bodies remember before their minds do. Panic, tightness, or disorientation arise without warning. In those moments, Breath becomes a powerful lifeline during moments of overwhelm, especially when navigating emotional healing and its physical toll.
One of the most effective emotional regulation techniques for adults is breathwork — particularly when trauma triggers fight-or-flight.
Box Breathing Exercise:
- Inhale for 4 counts
- Hold for 4 counts
- Exhale for 4 counts
- Hold for 4 counts
- Repeat 4–6 times
This calms the nervous system and restores clarity — a pattern several characters in the book use to ground themselves before processing difficult memories.
Technique 3: Allowing Emotion Without Judgment
Healing begins when you stop telling yourself what you “should” feel.
In Soul Reclaimed, Linda discovers that growth doesn’t come from controlling feelings — it comes from allowing them to pass through without resistance. With the help of her therapist, she learns not to label emotions as “wrong,” but as information from the body.
Practice:
When you feel overwhelmed, don’t say, “I shouldn’t feel this way.” Instead say, “This is what I feel. And I can survive this moment.” Then sit with the emotion for 90 seconds. Research shows that most emotional peaks last about that long — unless we feed them with fear or shame.
This gentle approach is a foundational piece of lasting emotional regulation.
Technique 4: Using Visualization to Access Safety
Julie, like many survivors in the book, had to learn how to feel safe in her own body again. One of the ways she achieved this was through guided imagery — creating a mental sanctuary to retreat to when the world felt threatening.
Try this Safe Place Visualization:
- Close your eyes
- Picture a peaceful location (real or imagined)
- Imagine every detail: the smell, the sounds, the temperature
- Breathe slowly while imagining yourself fully at ease there
Used regularly, this becomes a go-to regulation tool when stress begins to mount. It’s a way of creating an internal space that feels stable, even when your external world doesn’t.
Technique 5: Meeting Yourself with Compassion
Dr. Ritter emphasizes one truth repeatedly: healing is not linear. You’ll revisit old wounds. You’ll regress. You’ll fall apart at times. But compassion keeps you from falling into self-hate.
In the therapy room, clients like Rick and Linda discover how harshly they’ve judged themselves — and how freeing it is to say, “I am doing the best I can.” They learn that self-compassion isn’t indulgent. It’s revolutionary.
Affirmation Practice:
- “I am allowed to feel this.”
- “I don’t have to have it all together today.”
- “My pain is real, and my healing is valid.”
These are not just comforting statements — they are psychological anchors when the waves of emotion feel too high to withstand.
Technique 6: Journaling Through the Noise
One of the most underused yet powerful emotional regulation techniques for adults is reflective writing. In Soul Reclaimed, writing becomes a vehicle for transformation. It allows individuals to unpack their pain, reframe their stories, and spot the threads of growth hiding in their suffering.
Journaling Prompt Ideas:
- “When I feel ___, I tend to ___.”
- “A moment I handled better than I expected was…”
- “Right now, my body feels…”
- “What I wish I could say to my younger self is…”
Journaling brings clarity. It creates distance from reactive emotions and builds inner dialogue — one based on observation, not judgment.
Technique 7: Grounding in the Present Moment
Trauma keeps you stuck in the past. Worry projects you into the future. But regulation — and healing — live in the present.
That’s why Soul Reclaimed doesn’t rush transformation. Instead, it emphasizes the importance of being where you are — even when it’s messy, raw, or uncertain.
5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Tool:
- 5 things you can see
- 4 things you can touch
- 3 things you can hear
- 2 things you can smell
- 1 thing you can taste
It sounds simple, but it’s a way to bring the body and mind back into the now — the only space where healing can begin.
Technique 8: Sharing the Pain (When You’re Ready)
A breakthrough moment in Julie’s story happens not when she “fixes” her trauma, but when she finds someone she can safely share it with. Connection is the final frontier in emotional regulation. It’s what transforms survival into healing.
If you’re ready, speaking your truth in therapy — or to a trusted friend — can interrupt isolation. It’s a vulnerable step, but one that tells your nervous system: you’re no longer alone.
Ask Yourself:
- “Who is safe enough to hold space for my truth?”
- “What would it feel like to not carry this alone anymore?”
Whether it’s one-on-one counseling, a support group, or spiritual community, connection helps regulate emotional pain faster than logic ever could.
Emotional Regulation as Transformation
The heart of Soul Reclaimed is this: healing from trauma is not about returning to who you were. It’s about discovering who you really are — underneath the survival patterns, the pain, and the fear.
Likewise, emotional regulation techniques for adults aren’t just about calming down. They’re about becoming whole. They teach you to listen to your body’s cues, honor your truth, and gently guide yourself out of reaction and into intention.
You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to practice. With time, you’ll begin to notice: the triggers that once knocked you over no longer hold the same power.
You’ve reclaimed your soul. And with it, your strength.
